Rules of the Game (19 page)

So instead, teach your subconscious to dump your pauser by learning to speak more slowly. Or train yourself to tap your finger against something every time you have the impulse to say “um.”

Your subconscious wants to help you. It's just that sometimes the subconscious gets poor training. “Your subconscious never works against what it believes are your best interests,” King writes. “Unfortunately, the assumptions on which those beliefs are based may be very faulty.”

By interacting with your subconscious, King argues, you can understand your motivations and change the ones that aren't effective. He provides several strategies for interacting with your subconscious.

First of all, King suggests that you give it a name. Next, you can try one of two forms of memory search. The first is called a “treasure hunt.” For this activity, simply talk to your subconscious as though you're chatting with a new pal. Name a memory of something pleasant and see what the subconscious brings back in terms of detail and vividness. Or you can ask your subconscious to return its own favorite memories. Memories you had forgotten will appear, and sensations will come flooding back.

The second form of memory search is called “trash collecting.” For this activity, ask your subconscious to bring up all its worst memories. Do this enough, and you'll begin to see patterns. “The memories will follow certain themes that
will provide you with clues to areas of limiting beliefs that may be hampering your development,” King writes. “You may find, for instance, that a whole series of ‘worst memories' in a particular session has a fear-of-rejection theme or a need-to-control theme.” When it comes to women, we've all had embarrassing experiences. But if these incidents aren't properly handled in our subconscious, they can cause us to sabotage our own potential for success.

One of King's main teachings is to stop being a victim to your subconscious, and instead learn to guide and instruct it.

One way to do this is by striving for what King calls emotional freedom. Stop identifying with “the emotional reactions of your subconscious,” King writes. “When you say, ‘I am angry,' you are identifying with the subconscious, and you may find it extremely difficult to get rid of the anger.”

Instead, determine the purpose and origin of a new emotion as soon as it starts. Ask yourself, “Where did this emotion come from? Why am I feeling it right now?”

These and other questions allow you to discover the sources of your emotions. Even the act of self-examination itself can help you calm down. “The analysis itself tends to drain the emotion of its power because you are diverting the energy of the emotion to the conscious thinking process,” King explains.

He also prescribes reprogramming as a technique to control your subconscious. “If you want to change the habitual thinking of the subconscious, you must consciously keep the desired pattern in the forefront of your mind until the subconscious has accepted it as a new habit.” This is why affirmations, as silly as they seem sometimes, can directly improve your success with women.

To truly understand the conscious mind, it's necessary to understand the nature of will power. The only real ability you have on a conscious level is the power to direct your awareness and attention to a thought or experience. This is what's meant by “free will.”

We can't make a woman like us, make the boss give us a raise, or make that 1974 Ford Pinto start in the morning. “What we can do, however, is to choose to decide how we are going to respond to our experience of life, what we are
going to do from this moment forward and in any future moment to change either ourselves or the circumstances,” King writes.

King defines determination as “the continuous, conscious directing of attention and awareness toward a given end for a purpose.” And goals are achieved, he continues, “by continuously renewing the decisions or choices made to reach the given end, in spite of apparent obstacles and difficulties.”

In other words, if one method does not work after repeated attempts, a determined person doesn't give up. “He tries another, and then another, until he finds one that does work, even if it means he has to change himself.”

The difference, King concludes, between those with strong will and those with weak will is that the strong decide to continue, while the weak quit. It's important to remember this when the girl you've been talking to all night gives you a fake phone number, or you see a woman who just rejected your approach making out with some stranger. Failures and setbacks are fine. Deciding to quit is not.

King makes a distinction between achieving goals and fulfilling a purpose that is key to your self-improvement journey.

The difference is that a purpose is “something that will give meaning to your whole life.” A goal simply measures progress toward your purpose—like the concrete results you wrote down for your personal mission statement.

“Unlike a goal, a purpose is not something you reach but something you do,” King writes. “Goals without purpose are empty of meaning, while having a purpose can give meaning to any goal.”

Elsewhere in his book, King provides countless other tools for improving your mental and emotional states. By using your mind to improve your life, you can build the confidence that is an absolutely vital component to being successful with women.

As King suggests, “Look for the good in everything and, if you can't find any, figure out a way to put some in.”